Lime tutorial and soft fimo

FIMO clay became very soft recently. That is either my hands are hotter now, or they changed the formula of clay. Even Fimo classic is very soft, not to mention Fimo soft. You don't want your clay to be soft when you are trying to make a cane :) A few days ago I had to make a lime cane for one order, most of which is translucent clay (Fimo soft). It was so soft, it reminded me a used chewing gum. So I had to leach out some oil of it: placed a thin sheet of clay between two sheets of paper, put a heavy box on top of the stack, and left it for a few hours. I didn't even have to pass translucent clay through a pasta machine. I have just stretched it with my fingers.

After a few hours I have managed to make a lime cane:

Holly bracelets

I have tried a play-doh technique invented by Idit Zoota for making canes of unusual shapes (you can read more about it and see videos at Yonat's page), and I came up with these holly leaves.

I've added some red glass beads and finished leaves into festive christmasy bracelets.

New cane

I've run out of pretty canes, but I still have plenty ugly ones :))) I don't know what to do with them yet, so I sat down yesterday and made some new canes.
I came up with this 3D design:

Caleidoscope canes

This is a butterfly wing cane I've made and I was very happy with :)) But the actual butterfly cane didn't come out too well, I think I've made a butterfly body too big. I've decided to turn an unlucky butterfly cane into caleidoscope canes. And I love the results! :))
The actual canes:

Bracelets:

Two tutorials in one post - flower canes and daisy buttons

We are going to make two kinds of flowers from this lot:


Making a skinner blend using pasta-machine:




Making a shaded plug. Cut the plug into 4 segments.


Place 2 thin sheets of dark clay on sides of 2 segments.


Making a "stamen" :) I mixed light part of leftover clay into one colour and rolled it into a snake. Place a snake in the middle of one segment, cover with another one. Press and shape resulting cane into roundish cane.


Join the two remaining segments of shaded plug, so the white sides face each other. Roll them to get the right length, and to fix two segments together. Wrap the resulting piece around the first cane, and wrap the whole thing with a thin sheet of dark clay.


Here you can do whatever you want with you petal cane. You can reduce it and cut it into 5-6 parts, form them into a flower and fill the background with translucent clay.
I prefer keeping petal canes as they are, as you can use them just for petals as well you can make flowers out of them any time.


Making a flower. Cut a small piece of petal cane, give it a shape of a drop. Slice this cane into small single petals. Place petals on a rolled sheet of clay and press them gently onto a base.


For the flower center I took some yellow clay, placed it in the middle of the flower and pressed it with an embossing tool.


A second flower will be a quick daisy, a very basic cane.

Making a cane for the center of a flower. Make a yeloow and orange cane out of many smaller yellow and orange bull's canes.


Making a petal. I used Fimo "Sahara" for contours and lines inside petal.




I tried two colours for the base of a flower. In the final creation you don't see a base att all, so the colour of it doesn't matter. In one of the daisies I've bent the petal slightly down, which makes a future button less fragile. Buttons of a last photo are still unbaked.


These are some of my fresh petal canes.


For these yellow and red flowers I used the same petal cane.


An Altoids box, covered with my new canes.

My first cane

Being cross stitch addict in the past, I made my first cane with cross stitches :). Cross and square canes were extruded using Makin's clay extruder, then placed together to make a "cross-stitched" letter Z.